High School Running Coach: Great HS coaches sharing their training and answering your questions on training. I run this site and I’m so excited about it’s potential to help HS coaches help their athletes. Join the mailing list to get the Key Workouts from our coaches – click here.

First off is an article from Steve Magness. It’s an insightful framing of the placebo effect and it’s place in running. Some interesting science in his explanation of the placebo effect in the medical world, and in this bit from Trent Stellingwerf: “Stellingwerff brought up the fact that the effects of proven ergogenic aids don’t aggregate. Meaning that if we get a 2% boost from caffeine, another 1% from beta alanine, and 2% from beet root juice, if we took all of them, we don’t get a 5% bump in performance. They all act on different physiological systems, so why is there no additive effect? The authors speculate that, they all act on a central mechanism that regulates performance…”

Second is about a shoe that represents the running shoe industry’s overcorrection (in my opinion) from the minimalist movement – the Hoka One One. A new training tool? Perhaps. With all of the focus on minimalist shoes over the past few years I think looking at these shoes on a runner is simply fun. Here is another article on shoes at the New York Marathon:

Finally, here is an article on goal setting and process orientation. I love it and I think you’ll enjoy it too. (Note: this is the type of article I post on my tumblr site, but it fit here as well).

Final read this week is the blog of Macklin Chaffee, a 1,500m runner I coach. I like him, he’s talented and he’s working hard to become a better runner. He broke the 3:40 barrier (barley) this past weekend at Stanford. I feel confident that he can run faster as we’ve done very little race specificity work. He will enjoy some down time at sea-level, race a road race, then come back to Boulder for some serious training.

My 12″ Power PC G4 has a dictionary widget. The definition for dissent is below.

During a long run this weekend I had a conversation with Todd Straka about the blog you’re reading. He’s had the url BoulderRunning.com for several years and knows a great deal about running a running web site. In the course of the run two things occurred to me. First, I really like this blog because it’s forcing me to become a better coach; when someone comments it invariably forces me to analyze my approach/position on the topic at hand and at this point in my career that’s a very good thing.* I go out of my way to look for points of view that differ from mine and while I most agree with Vern Gambetta** and Steve Magness I try to read everything they write because it simply makes me think. So when you, the reader, comment, you make me a better coach and for that I think you.